Tag: megalithic

Water Sheddles Cross, Oakworth Moor, West Yorkshire

megalithix

Standing Stone:  OS Grid Reference – SD 9711 3826

Also known as:

  1. Hanging Stone
  2. Standing Stone
  3. Waterscheddles Cross

Getting Here

The old stone, lost amidst the colour of hills
The old stone, lost amidst the colour of hills

Pretty easy to find.  Go along the Oakworth-Wycoller road, between Keighley and Colne, high up on the moors.  When you get to the Water Sheddles Reservoir right by the roadside (y’ can’t miss it), stop!  On the other side of the road walk onto the moor, heading for the walling a coupla hundred yards to your east (right).  Where the corner edge of the walling ends, your standing stone is right in front of you!  If for some reason you can’t see it, wander about – though beware the very boggy ground all round here.

Archaeology & History

This seven-foot tall monolith, leaning to one side thanks to the regularly water-logged peat beneath its feet, stands on the Yorkshire-Lancashire.  It is locally known as the Hanging Stone and the Standing Stone, but the name ‘Water Sheddles’ is a bittova puzzle.  The place-names authority, A.H. Smith (1961) thinks it may derive from the middle-english word, shadel, being a ‘parting of the waters’ – which is pretty good in terms of its position in the landscape and the boggy situation around it.  But ‘sheddle’ was also a well-used local dialect word, though it had several meanings and it’s difficult to say whether any of them would apply to this old stone.  Invariably relating to pedlars, swindling or dodgy dealings, it was also used to mean a singer, or someone who rang bells, or a schedule, aswell as to shuffle when walking.  Perhaps one or more of these meanings tells of events that might have secretly have been done here by local people, but no records say as such — so for the time being I’ll stick with Mr Smith’s interpretation of the word!  Up until the year 1618 it was known simply as just a ‘standing stone’, when it seems that the words “Hanging Stone or Water Sheddles Cross” were thereafter carved on its west-face, as the photo below shows.

Cross carved on the head of the stone
Cross carved on top of the stone
The old stone, with its names carved for all to see

Whether or not this stone is prehistoric has been open to conjecture from various quarter over the years.  Is it not just an old boundary stone, erected in early medieval times?  Or perhaps a primitive christian relic?  Certainly the stone was referred to as “le Waterschedles crosse”, as well as “crucem”, in an early record describing the boundaries of the parish of Whalley, dating from around the 15th century.  This has led some historians to think that the monolith we see today is simply a primitive cross.  However, sticking crosses on moortops or along old boundaries tended to be a policy which the Church adopted as a means to ‘convert’ or christianize the more ancient heathen sites.  It seems probable in this case that an old wooden cross represented the ‘crucem‘ which the monks described in the early Whalley parish records.

Site marked on 1892 map

This monolith likely predates any christian relic that might once have stood nearby; although the carving of a ‘cross’ on the head of the stone may have supplemented the loss of the earlier wooden one.  But it seems likely that this carved ‘cross’ was done at a later date than the description of the ‘crucem‘ in the parish records — probably a couple of centuries later, when a boundary dispute was opened, in 1614, about a query on the precise whereabouts of the Yorkshire-Lancashire boundary.  After several years, as John Thornhill (1989) wrote,

“the matter was resolved on the grounds that the vast Lancastrian parish of Whalley had claimed territorial jurisdiction as far east as the Hanging Stone, thus the county boundary was fixed on the Watersheddles Cross.”

Water Sheddles stone looking SW
Water Sheddles stone looking SW

Certainly the stone hasn’t changed in the last hundred years, as we can tell from a description of it by Henry Taylor (1906), who said:

“The remains consist of a rough block of stone, leaning at an angle of about forty-five degrees against a projecting rock. The top end has been shaped into the form of an octagon, on the face of which a raised cross is to be seen. The stone is about six feet long and two feet wide, tapering to eleven inches square at the upper end, and appears once to have stood upright. Some local authorities have cut on it the words, ‘Hanging Stone or Waterscheddles Cross.'”

So is it an authentic prehistoric standing stone?  Tis hard to say for certain I’m afraid.  It seems probable – but perhaps no more probable than the smaller Great Moss Standing Stone found just a couple of hundred yards away in the heather to the west, on the Lancashire side of the boundary.  Tis a lovely bitta moorland though, with a host of lost folktales and forgotten archaeologies…

References:

  1. Bennett, Paul, The Old Stones of Elmet, Capall Bann: Milverton 2001.
  2. Brigg, J.J., ‘A Disputed County Boundary”, in Bradford Antiquary, 2nd Series, no.8, 1933.
  3. Smith, A.H., The Place-Names of the West Riding of Yorkshire – volume 6, Cambridge University Press 1961.
  4. Taylor, Henry,The Ancient Crosses and Holy Wells of Lancashire, Sherratt & Hughes: Manchester 1906.
  5. Thornhill, John, ‘On the Bradford District’s Western Boundary,’ in Bradford Antiquary, 3rd Series, vol.4, 1989.
  6. Wright, Joseph, English Dialect Dictionary – volume 5, Henry Frowde: Oxford 1905.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Hamblethorpe, Low Bradley, Skipton, North Yorkshire

megalithix

Standing Stones:  OS Grid Reference – SE 00303 47622

Getting Here

Hamblethorpe Stones, Low Bradley
Hamblethorpe Stones, Low Bradley

Take the single-track country lane between Farnhill and Low Bradley until you reach Hamblethorpe farmhouse.  Where the birch woodland is on the slope going uphill, the field on the other side of the road, protected by walling, is where the stones are, just south of the farmhouse.  There’s nowhere to park any car hereabouts, so it’s best walking here.

Archaeology & History

It seems that nothing has previously been written of this place.  Hidden away at the top of the field we find two curious-looking standing stones: one nearly six-feet tall, and its companion about four-feet.  They’re near the bottom of the slope from the giant Round Cairn and Long Cairn tombs of Low Bradley Moor, several hundred yards to the east— and were it not for the fact that they have a distinctive Castlerigg-like appearance about them, perhaps I wouldn’t have given them a second chance.  Curious earthworks are in the same field, to which written records also appear silent.  Tis a lovely little spot…

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Haer Stanes, Llanbryde, Banffshire

megalithix

Stone Circle (destroyed):  OS Grid Reference – NJ 2691 5985

Also Known as:

  1. Haerstanes
  2. Harestones

Archaeology & History

Haer Stanes on the 1871 map

This site had already passed into memory when the Ordnance Survey lads visited the area in 1870, but at least they included it on their early survey.  Fred Coles (1906) described this site in his essay on the megaliths of Banffshire, where once could be found perhaps five stone circles close to each other – but all are now gone!  Bloody disgraceful really.  When Coles explored here, although the site was still shown on maps, little could be seen of the place.

“On the farm,” he wrote, “we heard long-handed-down tradition of the Circle, and the site was, rather vaguely, pointed out.” But there was nothing there. He described one reference to the place written by a Mr James Morrison, who said, “We have remains of two so-called Druid Circles, and during the last half-century three others have been swept away. One of these was in horse-shoe form and was called the Haer Stanes.” The same writer later says, “These stones were unfortunately found to lie in the line of a road then formed (1830) and were ignominiously tumbled down the slope on which for ages they had rested, and buried in a gravel pit by the side of the road.”

References:

  1. Cole, Fred, ‘Report on Stone Circles Surveyed in the North-East of Scotland…’, in Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries, Scotland, volume 40, Edinburgh 1906.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Gull Stones, Great Yarmouth, Norfolk

megalithix

Stone Circle (destroyed):  OS Grid Reference – TG 524 035

Archaeology & History

Several local history records describe there being a circle of ten standing stones in a field called ‘Stone-field’ or ‘Stone-piece’ – now covered by a housing estate at Gorleston-on-Sea, south of Yarmouth.  In 1875, C. J. Palmer said that,

“there is a tradition that the Druids had a temple at Gorleston, some remains of which existed down to a comparatively recent period. It is supposed to have stood on a field next to the road to Lowestoft, upon what is called Great Stone Close; and it has been asserted that some huge stones remained standing until 1768, when they were destroyed by digging round their base and dragging them down by ropes. There are also two fields called Further Stone Close and Middle Stone Close, so that it is possible the Druidical circle, if it ever existed, may have had a wide extent”.

A painting of the site was reported to have been viewed by members of the Norfolk & Norwich Archaeological Society in 1888, but I’ve been unable to find out where this has gone.  Anyone out there got a copy?  Or know where it hangs?  An image of this lost stone circle would be hugely welcome!

References:

  1. Burgess, Michael W., The Standing Stones of Norfolk and Suffolk, ESNA 1: Lowestoft 1978.
  2. Palmer, C.J., The Perlustration of Great Yarmouth – volume 3, George Nall: Gt Yarmouth 1875.

Links:

  1. Hidden East Anglia: Ancient Sites & Legends

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Green Crag Plain, Ilkley Moor, West Yorkshire

megalithix

Standing Stone:  OS Grid Reference – SE 131 457

Getting Here

Standing Stone on Green Crag Plain, Ilkley Moor
Standing Stone on Green Crag Plain, Ilkley Moor

The best way to get here it is to head from the Cow and Calf Hotel up the hillside to where the great rock is sticking out (the Pancake Stone).  From here, head straight onto the moor toward the Idol Stone — close to the Idol Rock which you can see 400 yards south in front of you.  From here, follow the footpath up the hill before you and keep on the path towards Lanshaw Lass.  About 100 yards on, turn straight west into the heather and keep your eye towards the south.  About 250 yards on, about 100 yards away from the Green Crag Top cup-marked boulder,  you’ll see it!

Archaeology & History

One of very few solitary standing stones on Ilkley Moor, and one which I relocated after The Old Stones of Elmet (2001) had gone to press — which was a great pity.  Nearly four feet tall, this is a good chunky monolith which stands close to being on line with the summer solstice alignment from the nearby Twelve Apostles stone circle. (I was gonna call it the Summer Stone, but thought better of it!)

There’s another recumbent stone, more than five feet tall when erected, 200 yards northwest of here. (This is also very close to being in line with with our chunky monolith, plus the Twelve Apostles. Anyone out there with a GPS who can check if this possible alignment is the last remnant of a summer solstice stone row? It probably isn’t, but it’d be good to find out.)  On the same moorland level, heading back down, when the heather’s burnt back you’ll find a number of prehistoric tombs along the edge of the ridge.  These don’t appear to be in the archaeological registers.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Frogden Circle, Linton, Roxburghshire

megalithix

Stone Circle (destroyed):  OS Grid Reference – NT 774 292

Also known as:

  1. Five Stones
  2. The Tryst

Archaeology & History

Less than a mile northwest of the hillfort on Linton Hill, modern OS-maps show the field-name of ‘Five Stone Field’ which is where, in bygone years, another important stone circle once stood.  Today unfortunately, not a single stone remains.  As the Scottish Royal Commission (1956) lads told:

“About a mile NE of Frogden, on the N side of the road between Frogden and Greenlees, there were formerly five or six upright stones forming a circle, ‘about the size of a cock-pit’ (1792 Statistical Account). This circle, which was adopted as a rendezvous by Border raiders in the Middle Ages and became known as The Tryst, has long since disappeared, but its approximate site is indicated on the OS map by the name Five…Stone Field.”

Folklore

One of many stone circles used as an old moot, or gathering spot.  This was described in one of the many footnotes to Sir Walter Scott’s (1802) Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, in which he told:

“At Linton, in Roxburghshire, there is a circle of stones surrounding a smooth plot of turf, called the Tryst, or place of appointment, which tradition avers to have been the rendezvous of the neighbouring warriors. The name of the leader was cut in the turf, and the arrangement of the letters announced to his followers the course which he had taken.”

This tradition was echoed around the same period in Robert Forsyth’s (1805) massive work on the history of Scottish life and landscape, saying:

“In different parishes, such as Moorbattle, Linton, and others, are to be found what are called tryst stanes. These are great stones commonly situated on high grounds. They are placed perpendicularly in rows, not unfrequently in a circular direction. It is said, as also the name imports, that in times of hostility they marked the places of resort for the borderers when they were assembling for any expedition of importance.”

References:

  1. Burl, Aubrey, The Stone Circles of Britain, Ireland and Brittany, Yale University Press 2000.
  2. Forsyth, Robert, The Beauties of Scotland – volume 2, Thomas Bonar: Edinburgh 1805.
    Royal Commission on the Ancient & Historical Monuments of Scotland, Roxburghshire – volume 1, HMSO: Edinburgh 1956.
  3. Scott, Walter, Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, James Ballantyne: Kelso 1802.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Hartwith Moor, Summerbridge, North Yorkshire

megalithix

Standing Stone:  OS Grid Reference – SE 21233 62737

Also Known as:

  1. Standing Stone Hill

Getting Here

Hartwith Moor stone

A half-mile south of the superb Brimham Rocks complex, take the straight road south until you hit the second farmhouse (and accompanying caravans).  Go up the public footpath past Highfield Farm and just check with the landowner’s permission to wander his land if you want to see the stone.  They’re OK about it if you ask.  The lady there is very amiable and will tell you what’s what, giving directions right to it, telling us it was off the footpath in the middle of one of his fields.

Archaeology & History

Archaeology texts are, once more, silent about this stone (and other monuments in the region), making you wonder just what the hell some of them are paid for!  The stone appears to have given its name to the land upon which it stands which, as the locals tell, “has always been known as standing stone hill.”  And no wonder — it’s a bloody decent standing stone!  On its northern face we find well-eroded lines running down the stone, similar to the weathering found on the Devil’s Arrows a few miles to the east.

Standing Stone Hill stone
Looking south

Although just over 6-feet tall, this is a solid bulky old fella.  But the spot he presently occupies isn’t his original standing place.  He was found knocked over and lying on the ground in the middle of the 20th century, slightly out of position.  But he was thankfully stood back upright by the local land-owners sometime in the 1960s, where he’s been stood ever since.  It must have been one helluva job!  And making it more difficult was the intriguing geological nature of the Earth right beneath this field.  As the lady who now own the land told us,

“When the fields were tilled we found that all of them were easy to turn over, except the one with the stone in it!  There’s virtually no soil of any depth to write home about,” she said.  “It stands on only a few inches of soil and then you hit solid rock right underneath it.  All the other fields are OK – but this one’s the odd one out.”

And before the fields were farmed, just over a hundred years ago, all this land was covered in moorland heather.  Then the land was enclosed, the Earth’s heathland stripped out of existence and turned over to agriculture.  But thankfully the standing stone was left here.  It makes you wonder what else was destroyed when the moorlands were industrialised…

The stone does get a brief mention in Boughey & Vickerman’s (2003) Prehistoric Rock Art of the West Riding, where they mention there being “three possible cups in (a) line on one side” of the standing stone, but these are little more than Nature’s handiwork and nowt else.  There are a couple of other cup-and-rings nearby which are the real thing – but the ‘cups’ on this stone aint man-made.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Eilean Musdile, Lismore, Argyll

megalithix

Standing Stone (destroyed):  OS Grid Reference – NM 778 351

Also Known as:

  1. Canmore ID 22659

Archaeology & History

Once to be seen on the highest point of the island, this impressive 9-foot tall standing stone is thought to have been removed during construction of the old lighthouse around 1833.  First described by a traveller here in 1784, it was mentioned just once again during survey work in 1829. The monolith appears to have recorded the midwinter sunset.

References:

  1. Royal Commission on the Ancient & Historical Monuments of Scotland, Argyll – volume 2: Lorn, HMSO: Edinburgh 1975.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Druimyeonbeg, Isle of Gigha, Argyll

megalithix

Cist (destroyed):  OS Grid Reference – NR 6463 4958

Also Known as:

  1. Canmore ID 38525

Archaeology & History

An old stone-lined burial cist could once be seen in this locale: reported in 1953 to have been “discovered in the southwest corner of a field south of Druimyeonbeg farmhouse.”  When it was uncovered by the farmer, the covering capstone was missing.  Any relics that may have been there were destroyed and there’s now no trace of anything.

References:

  1. Royal Commission on the Ancient & Historical Monuments of Scotland, Argyll – Volume 1: Kintyre, Glasgow 1971.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Machuim, Lawers, Loch Tay, Perthshire

megalithix

Stone Circle:  OS Grid Reference – NN 68201 40156

Also Known as:

  • Lawer’s Mill

Getting Here

From the north-end of Loch Tay at Kenmore, follow the road (A827) round down the lochside, through the village of Fearnan and then another 4 miles down.  If you park up at the pub at Lawers, walk back up the road for ½-mile, keeping your eyes peeled up the slope on the left where you’ll see the circle visible from the road.

Archaeology & History

Much has been said of this fine old place – also known as Lawer’s Mill – which seems to have been first described by Thomas Pennant in his rambling Tour in Scotland (1772).  The local writer William A. Gillies (1938) told that after

“a recent examination of the ground around the circle…suggests that at one time there was an outer circle of stones concentric with the existing one. Most of the stones were removed in order to make more of the field available for cultivation, but there are still large stones buried within a few inches of the surface.”

Folklore

In J. McDiarmid’s Folklore of Breadalbane (1910) he tells of a man from Killin who, on passing by this old circle, heard haunting fairy music.  Being inquisitive, he walked up to see what was going on and walked into the circle where the little people were playing.  He was obviously lucky and the faerie-folk enjoyed his company, for when he left he was given the gift of a strong, fast, white steed.

Solar folklore may be…?

References:

  1. Gillies, William A., In Famed Breadalbane, Munro Press: Perth 1938.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian